Senior Strategy Director - Pharma (Local to Chicago Only)

Pivot Design is a creative agency focused on wellness. Woman-owned and independent, seeing things differently is in our DNA. We think freely and move quickly to push the boundaries of what wellness brands can be, making them more vibrant, approachable, and real. To us, wellness is way more than a category. It’s a mindset that inspires what we do and why we do it: to leverage the power of design to change the trajectory of people’s lives.

Overview

The Senior Strategy Director has a deep understanding of audiences and can translate insights to fuel brand-building ideas and breakthrough creative in the pharmaceutical market. This role is extremely curious in nature, always digging deeper to understand the audience, always pushing to bring the client new ideas, and always seeking to stay on top of industry trends. The Senior Strategy Director must be extremely collaborative with the internal team and comfortable creating and presenting POVs to the client and leading workshops. This role will manage a book of key clients, “guest star” in select client opportunities that fall outside of the key clients, and participate in select new business opportunities.

Key Responsibilities:

Strategy:

• Creates provocative insights that form the basis for creative strategies and actionable output
• Develop inspiring creative briefs
• Deep understanding of brand strategy principles and ability to develop clear positioning statements
• Consumes and distills information into clear, concise summaries of key takeaways and a strong point of view.
• Adept at developing and understanding customer journeys
• Leads scaffolding and preparation for client discoveries and workshops and comfortably moderates break-out groups and/or main sessions. Interprets key takeaways into actionable work for the agency.
• Active participant throughout the client’s annual brand planning process from identifying untapped opportunities and insights, to strategy development, to driving tactical ideation
• Thorough understanding of key client accounts (including therapeutic areas, audiences, and competitive set) and how to apply learnings to brand strategy
• An integral part of the RFP process, from identifying insights to setting the strategy to shaping the story, to presenting in the room to prospective clients
• Stays on top of marketplace trends and develops POVs for the agency to share with Clients
• Contributes to thought leadership at Pivot, such as white papers, industry surveys, etc

Creative:

• Experience applying strategic insight to marketing program development and helping creative teams understand an insight and translate it into creative magic
• Is passionate about ideas – both an idea-generator and idea-facilitator. Proactively brings new and relevant ideas to the agency
• Leads team brainstorms that are grounded in strategic insights that produce innovative creative ideas
• Mastery of visualization and “storytelling” from data
• Demonstrates ability to move beyond data to discover creative solutions

Research:

• Understands various research methodologies and identifies appropriate research methods to address brand challenges and knowledge gaps at hand
• Can drive the research process and, when appropriate, moderates qualitative research
• Conducts consumer trend analyses and incorporates findings to help initiate and guide strategic recommendations
• Prepares and presents research findings internally and to clients
• Has strong research interpretative and analytic skills
• Utilizes data to fuel imagination, using research as a place to start from, not as an end in itself

Professional:

• Strong client management skills and relationships
• Collaborates early and often with account and creative teams
• Strong presentation skills and confidence to lead the room
• Flexible to work over several projects and balance workload
• Attends relevant professional conferences and events

Qualifications

• 15 years account planning experience
• Healthcare agency experience with Patient and HCP marketing experience is required, and experience working in a strategic role for rare disease is a plus. Some consumer experience is also a plus.
• Appropriate academic/research training (social science, marketing, communication, statistics, strategic planning)
• Must be willing to work in the office a minimum of two days per week.

What We Offer:

At Pivot Design, we believe that our people are our greatest asset, and we have developed an employee-centric culture where we value our people above all else. With a focus on employee wellness, we offer competitive salaries and a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, and vision coverage, disability and life insurance, Flexible Spending and Healthcare Savings Accounts, a 401(k) & Profit Sharing Plan with company match, PTO and a flexible hybrid work environment. We are a passionate group of creative experts who support one another in our efforts to produce award-winning work for our amazing clients.

Many of the greatest ideas and creative come from a diverse mix of minds, backgrounds, and experiences, and Pivot is committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment. Pivot provides equal opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, religion, color, age, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic disposition, neurodiversity, disability, veteran status, or any other protected category under federal, state and local law.